Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mahmud Mohammed has assured that no judge found guilty of misconduct would go unpunished.
Handing this warning while swearing in five new judges of the Abuja High Court, the CJN advised judicial officers to resist temptations when they encounter them.
According to him, “As judicial officers, series of temptations will come your way but the ability to resist them will definitely stand you out and earn you a lasting reputation on the Bench.
“Otherwise, the National Judicial Council, which has the constitutional powers to discipline judicial officers, will not spare any judge for any misconduct.
“For a judge, this distinction is further heightened because as dispensers of justice, you are now the representatives of the Almighty Allah on earth.
“In your hands, you have the power of life and death, the power of judgement, the power to restitute, the power to give back and the power to take. You are now the face of law and order, the fulcrum between harmony on the one hand and chaos on the other”, the CJN added.
Giving an example with the report of the Hon Justice Kayode Eso-led Judicial Panel, Justice Mohammed said, “The judiciary by the nature of its function and role is the citizen’s last line of defense in a free society, that is, the line separating constitutionalism from totalitarianism.”
“No doubt, to effectively dispense your judicial functions and meet the jurisprudential needs of litigants in our courts, we must remain intellectually astute by consistently updating our knowledge of the law and other contemporary issues within the society”.
“An issue which is of great concern to me and one that I am committed to addressing during my tenure, is the delay in the dispensation of justice and the resultant case backlog.
“The sobering reality is that if the number of pending cases continues to grow at their present rate, our children may not be able to initiate and conclude a lawsuit within their lifetime,” he pointed out.
The CJN maintained that the foregoing has him to adopt the full adoption and utilization of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) processes in the various jurisdictions of our courts as a cardinal objective of his tenure as the Chief Justice of Nigeria and chairman of the National Judicial Council (NJC).
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